Nancy Keating, MD, MPH

Nancy L. Keating, MD, MPH, is a professor of health care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School and a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Keating’s research examines provider, patient, and health system factors that influence the delivery of high-quality care for individuals with cancer.

Dr. Keating is currently evaluating the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service’s Oncology Care Model, a new payment and delivery model for oncology practices administering chemotherapy. This model aims to use appropriately aligned financial incentives to improve care coordination, appropriateness of care, and access to care for Medicare beneficiaries undergoing chemotherapy at approximately 250 practices in the U.S., and the evaluation will assess patients’ experiences with care, quality of care, health care utilization, and outcomes.

Dr. Keating is a longstanding member of the Cancer Care Outcomes Research and Surveillance (CanCORS) Consortium, funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). This is a collaborative effort among investigators at seven sites to examine patterns of care and outcomes for patients with colorectal and lung cancer. Using CanCORS data linked with Medicare administrative data, she is seeking to better understand patient, physician, and health system factors contributing to the variations in the intensity of end-of-life (EOL) care for individuals with advanced cancer. In other work funded by the NCI, she is examining the influence of physician networks on care to understand the diffusion of cancer care practices over time, focusing on the use of new biologic therapies for cancer and care at the end of life.

In another project funded by the NCI, Dr. Keating is using data from the Massachusetts Cancer Registry linked with the Massachusetts All-Payer Claims Database to examine variations in the quality and costs of cancer care across provider networks in Massachusetts. Dr. Keating also has a K24 grant from the NCI that is applying from behavioral economics techniques to improve discussions and understanding of goals of chemotherapy for individuals with advanced cancer. Finally, with funding from the American Cancer Society, she is examining the impact of oral cancer drug parity laws, which have been adopted in 23 states since 2007, to ensure that patients pay no more for oral anti-cancer therapies than they pay for intravenous therapies offered by the same health plan. Findings from this study will inform current efforts in Congress to pass similar national legislation.

Dr. Keating received her MD from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and her MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. She was awarded the Outstanding Junior Investigator Award from the Society of General Internal Medicine in 2005. She is an associate editor at the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Geriatric Oncology, and a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Center Senior Oncology Guideline Panel. She recently completed 3-year terms on the Council of the Society of General Internal Medicine and the American Society of Clinical Oncology Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee. Dr. Keating recently served on the Institute of Medicine Committee: Clinical Guidance for the Care of Health Conditions Identified by the Camp Lejeune Legislation.